


Out of the Dark

by Fairfaxleasee



Series: Zevran/Avalonne [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Body Dysphoria, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29157408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairfaxleasee/pseuds/Fairfaxleasee
Summary: Avalonne Tabris has been imprisoned since her wedding.  She doesn't see much point in trying to change that, but Zevran Arainai and (most of) his companions do.
Relationships: Zevran Arainai/Female Tabris
Series: Zevran/Avalonne [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2141967
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	Out of the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> (In case it wasn't clear from the summary, this fic is set in a universe where Mahariel was recruited to the Wardens and Tabris was not.)
> 
> Thanks to @blondetexan and @xqueen0fhellx for betaing.

Avalonne Tabris lay on the floor. Aside from being able to stretch out all the way, the absence of the drag from the shackles that had chained her legs to the wall, and the fact that the floor was wooden rather than dirt, it was very much the same thing she’d been doing for the past… she had no idea, but if the ridiculous length her hair had grown to was any indication, it had been more than a few months. She’d been in the dungeons in the Arl of Denerim’s estate since she’d  _ frozen up _ and Vaughan Kendell had ordered her arrested after her wedding. Or was it during her wedding? She was fairly sure the ceremony hadn’t ended, despite having been interrupted. 

Perhaps Nelaros’ death had been the end of the wedding. She wasn’t sure how it could have continued without the groom. 

_ Stupid, sentimental man _ . 

He shouldn’t have come after her. Even if he and Soris had managed to find the weapons she knew neither of them could actually use. She wouldn’t be able to use them any more either. One of the people who had pulled her out of the dungeon, an older human woman, had been a healer. And while Avalonne’s fingers looked right for the first time in… however long, she wasn’t able to grip anything too tightly for very long.

She had no idea why the group had bothered to pull her out of the dungeons, let alone drag her with them to whatever human noble’s estate she was in now. She’d told them to leave her there. Soris and Vaughan had told them to leave her there. She suspected that the dark-haired elf with the strange tattoos and very put-upon demeanor had only unlocked her door because Vaughan had been so insistent he not do that and only let Vaughan out. She’d actually smiled a bit for the first time since, not very long at all after she’d been locked up herself, Vaughan started occupying the opposite cell when the annoyed elf shot Vaughan in the hand because he wouldn’t shut up.

Soris had run off, likely back to the alienage, as soon as his door was open. No one had bothered breaking his fingers or chaining him to the wall; he’d never been a threat to anyone. And he could just blame Avalonne for everything that had happened, like Shianni had almost certainly had done, and be, if not  _ welcomed _ back, at least tolerated back. Not her. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t locked in a cell anymore, she still couldn’t  _ go _ anywhere because there was nowhere  _ for _ her to go. Which is what she’d tried to explain to the strange group. Well, maybe she hadn’t tried to actually  _ explain  _ it but, given how they weren’t interested in listening to her when she’d stated it, explaining probably wouldn’t have done her any good. Besides, it wasn’t exactly something she was proud of.

The annoyed elf, after unlocking her legs, had said something like, “Flat-ear isn’t an archdemon, or  _ working _ for an archdemon, or going to be any help  _ at all _ in this  _ stupid _ ‘Landsmeet’ distraction, which  _ by the way _ ,” he had glared directly at the human man at that point, “is  _ also _ not an archdemon  _ or working for one _ ! So,” he had pointed at his companions individually and collectively as he continued, “DO. NOT. GET. DISTRACTED. BY. HER! She wants to stay in the dungeon, she can stay in the dungeon.  _ Let’s go _ !”

The healer watched him stalk off before shaking her head and approaching Avelonne, “Don’t pay him any mind. Theron’s just a bit… temperamental. Now, let’s see what I can do for you.”

“I am  _ not _ temperamental! I just want to do my Creator-forsaken job! Which should  _ not _ have involved traipsing around all over this stupid dog-infested country accquiring every useless person and should-be-inatimate object possible along the way, or taken this long, or been this hard! May the Dread Wolf take you all! I should have left you behind and brought Girl. Girl is capable of focusing!”

The other elf with an accent Avalonne didn’t recognize, cocked his head at the annoyed one and mused, “So… you truly believe things would have gone better if you had brought your hostage, Loghain’s daughter, who is about the only reason he hasn’t tried to kill you, again, to a stronghold of his ally where his other daughter is being held. Or, at least where she  _ claims _ to be being held. I remain skeptical.”

“First, seeing as you’re the person who tried to kill us in the first place;  _ shut up _ ! Second, in that I’d either already have what I came for or I’d be dead by now and none of this would be my problem anymore if I brought Girl instead of  _ you distractible idiots _ ; yes. That is  _ exactly _ what I think, Zevran! Wynne, you’ve healed her, she can get out of here if she wants to. LET’S. GO!”

“But, we can’t just leave her here in the dungeon.” The human man had looked slightly horrified at the idea.

“We  _ could _ if you idiots weren’t so  _ distractible _ ! And that’s  _ exactly _ what I intend to do. You care that much Alistair, come back after this Landsmeet of yours -  _ and the archdemon is dead _ \- when you’re king and order her out! She doesn’t want to go; let’s just leave her here and move on!” The annoyed elf took out an arrow and started poking the reluctant human in the head with it to direct him back the way everyone had come from. Strange thing to do to a man he seemed to think would be the king, but Avalonne was already in a cell so it wasn’t her problem.

“Theron,” the healer looked at him like Valendrian did a child he was scolding, “We’re not leaving her here. It won’t be any trouble to take her with us. And for the love of the Maker, put that arrow away before you poke someone’s eye out!”

He threw the arrow down and stomped off, “Dear Mythal,  _ why me _ ? What did I do to deserve to be stuck with these idiotic shems and their moronic sidekicks…” Avalonne suspected he’d kept ranting for quite a while but she couldn’t hear anything once he’d gone around the corner.

“Now dear,” the healer was looking at Avalonne again, “Do you feel strong enough to come on your own, or would you like Alistair to carry you?”

Avalonne blinked at the woman and turned away. She’d thought she’d been fairly clear about not wanting to go anywhere, but apparently the annoyed one was the only person who’d understood that. She heard the rest of them discussing something in whispers but didn’t particularly feel like listening closely enough to be able to figure out what exactly. 

She felt someone touch her shoulder and heard the strange accent again, “Come,  _ mia rosa bianca _ , let us get you back into the sun.”

She jerked her shoulder away from the touch, “I  _ told _ you. I don’t want to go. Leave me here.”

“Yes, ignore that thieving little bitch and let me out!” Avalonne tensed at Vaughan’s shout.

She heard a soft tsk from behind her and heard the man walk away. She wasn’t sure what he did in the little time he was away, but that was the last thing she heard from Vaughan and she thought she smelled blood when she heard him return.

“While I understand your reluctance given the… regrettably uncouth company you’ve been forced to keep in here, I am afraid I cannot do what you ask of me. I take no pleasure in ignoring a woman’s wishes, however even our overworked Grey Warden friend would not want me to leave you here to continue to wilt in the darkness.” He reached a hand covered in light armor in front of her. She batted it away. He sighed and reached down to pick her up. “ _ Perdonami, rosa bianca _ . I hope you will feel better in the sun.”

Avalonne couldn’t say she was in too much of a hurry to see the sun. After so long in the dungeon in almost complete darkness, the glare from the candles hurt her eyes. She hadn’t meant to, but she must have flinched or made some sort of a hurt noise at the assault to her retinas, because the man stopped and set her down. He started pressing gently along her ribs and bending her joints in some sort of examination, “I am sorry,  _ rosa bianca _ , did I hurt you when I picked you up? Or did Wynne perhaps miss something?” Avalonne’s ankles weren’t too enthused to be moving again after so long in shackles, but the discomfort from that was  _ nothing _ compared to the pain from the light from a nearby candelabra when the man bent down to examine them more closely. She hissed in pain and raised her hands in front of her eyes as she flinched away from the light. The man let her go and said, “I fully realize this may be an unnecessary instruction, but please do not move until I get back.” Again, Avalonne wasn’t sure how long the man had left for but when he came back he closed one of the hands that was still shielding her eyes over some sort of cloth. “Unfortunately, my  _ bella rosa _ , we do not have time to let you get used to the light again right now, so I am going to blindfold you instead. Do not fret; I promise you will not come to harm with me.”

He pulled the cloth out of her hand and she slowly lowered them. She still wasn’t sure why she’d done that; she had no reason to trust him and no desire to be helped. Maybe she’d just been too tired to keep resisting. He wound the cloth around her head a few times before tightening it over her eyes. She had a vague impression of light seeping in around the top and bottom of the cloth, but it at least wasn’t painful. She felt him lift her up again, but she wasn’t sure whether that was because of the blindfold, whatever he’d concluded about her ankles, or him realizing Avalonne wasn’t going to go anywhere of her own volition.

She thought she might have fallen asleep once she was blindfolded. In the dungeon, without the sun to go by, she had slept and woken whenever she’d felt like it. And there wasn’t much point in staying awake when the only things to do were listen to Soris or Vaughan go on about how the entire situation was her fault (she had long since stopped trying to point out to either of them that they, unlike her, were where they had been entirely for decisions they had made). She was fairly sure she’d missed something important, because the next thing she remembered specifically was feeling the man set her down and hearing several new voices arguing about a double-cross and Wardens being captured.

“Come, dear. We’ll leave them to it and get you cleaned up and out of those dirty clothes.” Based on the voice, Avalonne thought the person grabbing her arm was the healer. She led Avalonne… somewhere, Avalonne didn’t think it was far from where she’d been set down, but her legs still burned from the first exercise they’d had in too long. The healer let her go. “Now, there’s a washbasin and some nice soap in the corner and clean clothes on the bed for you to change into. I’ve closed the curtains so you can take off that blindfold.” Avalonne didn’t move so the healer walked over to remove the cloth herself. “The water’s nice and warm. Best use it before it gets too cold.” The healer led her to the basin and placed her arms in the water.

Avalonne heard the door open and an exasperated-sounding voice she thought she may have heard in the argument called into the room, “Wynne, Amelia’s got it in her head that she’s going to go to Fort Drakon and get Alistair and Theron out herself. Will you please come out and stop her?”

“I thought the girl was meant to be your  _ hostage _ , Teagan. Shouldn’t you be able to stop her?”

“I… that’s not the point. She won’t listen to anyone because she says she’s got the best chance of being able to get in without anyone trying to stop her.”

“Well, it seems to me like she’s right about that.”

“I  _ know _ ; that’s why she’s not listening to anyone. Will you just come out and tell her it’s a bad idea?”

“It doesn’t sound like a particularly bad idea to me.”

“Look, Loghain may be her father but if he realizes she’s working  _ with _ us she could still be in danger.”

“I…” the healer looked at Avalonne and put the bar of soap in the basin. “I’ll be back to check on you in a bit. Don’t let the water get too cold now.”

The healer had left with the new voice. Once her arms were wet, the months of grime had started itching, so despite the fact she had no real desire to, Avalonne had begun to rub it off. She’d stopped when she’d realized that the blue she was seeing wasn’t from bruising; it was from her veins. She’d always been pale; she’d been able to see the veins that ran close to the skin on the inside of her wrist since she could remember, but the time she’d lost in the cell had been enough to make her skin almost translucent. She hadn’t wanted to see what else it may have done. So she’d lain down on the floor and wished these people had just left her where they’d found her. Until she heard the door open and saw the approaching feet.

The familiar voice with the unfamiliar accent addressed her, “Ah, my poor  _ rosa bianca _ …” He knelt beside her and took one of her arms and began to rub it dry with a towel, “This is even worse than I suspected. Just how long did they lock you away in the dark?”

“I…” she felt the tears she didn’t think she had anymore run down her face. “ _ I don’t know _ .”

“Hm.” He dipped a smaller towel in the basin and used it to try and find her face under the layers of grot that covered it. “Do you perhaps remember when it was they did it?”

She shut her eyes at the memory. “...wedding,” she managed to whisper.

“Ah. Do you need assistance locating your husband? I am sure he will have been beside himself awaiting your return.”

Her whole body heaved as she sobbed. “Dead.” She had no idea why the fact upset her as much as it did. It must have been long ago, and she’d only spoken to the man once, and not even alone, not counting the few whispered sentences at the ceremony before everything had gone wrong.

“ _ Le mie condoglianze _ .”

“He shouldn’t be dead. They didn’t  _ want _ him. If he had just left well enough alone, he wouldn’t be dead.  _ He’s dead because he came after me and he didn’t even know me _ .” She kept sobbing on the floor until she was too exhausted to continue.

The man waited in silence until she finished. He reached under her arms and pulled her up to a seated position, “And is this why you wished to stay locked in the dark? Because you think you should be dead instead of him?”

She let out a laugh that sounded more like a cough before looking at the ceiling and shaking her head. She may regret that Nelaros was dead and know he didn’t have to be, but the decision to come after her had been his own; she hadn’t asked him to. Avalonne would never have expected him to, even if they had known each other more than a few hours.

“Then why,  _ rosa bianca _ , do you resist being brought back into the light?”

“Because I  _ deserve _ to be locked away and left to rot.”

He put a hand on her cheek and slowly traced along her jaw until he was lightly gripping her chin. She brought her eyes down with the movement and met his faintly golden gaze for a heartbeat before he asked the question she had been awaiting with trepidation, “And what is it that you have done that makes you think that?”

She closed her eyes and the tears began to flow again. This man had pulled her from the dungeon, he should know,  _ deserved  _ to know, why it had been a mistake. She had already told him about her wedding and her groom, why was the next part so hard?

He let go of her chin and she felt him begin to gather up the cascading waves of her overgrown deep caramel locks. She heard his next words from just behind her ear, “Tell me,  _ rosa bianca _ , what is your name?”

Now that she knew she wouldn’t have to look at the disappointment and disgust on his face at her confession she was able to open her eyes. “...Avalonne.”

“And did you perhaps overhear who I am?”

Avalonne had no idea what he meant by the question. “I… no. I don’t even know your name.”

“Ah, please forgive my unintentional rudeness for not introducing myself properly before. My name is Zevran, and, my dear Avalonne, I am a professional assassin. Or, perhaps, rather I was; lately I have been giving strong consideration to expanding the services I offer.”

“So…” she closed her eyes again, “You’re here to kill me?”

“No, I apologize if that is what it sounded like. I assure you, I did not mean to frighten or intimidate you by sharing that fact. Merely to tell you that whatever it is that you have done will not shock me. No matter how terrible you may think it is."

“I didn’t… I couldn’t…” She expected Zevran would step in to fill the silence; ask her questions, urge her along. But he didn’t. He seemed perfectly content to wait for her to decide she was ready. She wasn’t sure how long it took her, but eventually waiting became harder than confessing. “I cared more about what might happen because of what I would do than what had already happened because of what someone else did.”

“And this is a terrible crime in Ferelden?”

“I - no, it’s… Shianni needed my help. I  _ knew _ what Vaughan had done to her, what he was going to do to the rest of the women. The guards in that part of the estate were dead; it was just him and his drunk friends. They weren’t even  _ armed _ . It would have been  _ so easy _ to just slit their throats, but…” She tried to sink back to the floor, but Zevran placed his hands on her shoulders to keep her upright.

“You have spent enough time being low of late,  _ rosa bianca _ ; I wish to see you stand, not fall.”

“ _ But I couldn’t finish the job _ ! He said if I killed him, they’d purge the Alienage. We’d never stand a  _ chance _ against the guards; no one knows how to fight - my father doesn’t know how to fight! And I got so scared of that  _ idea _ that I froze! The next thing I remember, he was calling for more guards, saying I was a thief. There was some sort of coin purse in my hand, and the way Shianni was  _ looking _ at me.” She was crying again. “He probably purged the Alienage anyway; he didn’t end up in that cell until I’d fallen asleep a few times, so he’d have had more than enough time. I didn’t help  _ anyone _ and I lost  _ everything _ and that’s why you should have left me in the blighted dungeon!”

“You have my sympathies,  _ bella rosa _ . But you did not lose everything: you are still alive. And while you may regret that your husband traded his life for yours, I do not believe he would. But I also do not believe he would want you to spend it wilting on the ground.”

“I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“That, dear Avalonne, is a problem we can solve. I happen to know some very influential humans who owe me favors. Well, one soon-to-be influential human who I owe favors, but I fully intend that her also soon-to-be influential fiance will owe me favors in the near future, so it will balance out.” Avalonne had no idea what Zevran was talking about but didn’t get a chance to ask him as she became too focused on trying to get her feet under her correctly when he began to lift her to stand. “But I believe that you will feel better equipped to do so once we get you cleaned up.”

“That’s… I don’t…  _ Why do you care _ ?”

“Well, I, like you, greatly regret an action in my recent past. Unlike you, however, the situation was one in which I had complete control. A woman needed my help, begged for it, in fact. Not only did I not give it, I refused to. And while you did not ask for my help, it was clear you needed someone’s. Surely you can understand not wanting to repeat a mistake so quickly.”

Avalonne turned her head slightly to look at him. “So, you care because I remind you of this woman?” She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t like that idea at all.

Zevran half-smiled at her and shook his head. “Not at all, now that you mention it. Well, aside from finding yourselves in the position, which is hardly unique, of needing some assistance. Now, would you like to bathe alone?”

“...no. I - I don’t want to  _ see _ …”

She couldn’t finish the thought, but Zevran either understood or didn’t want to force her to say it. “Would you prefer I get Wynne to help you?”

“Wynne?”

“The one who healed you. She will likely be somewhat cross with me, I told her that Oghren had gotten his head stuck in one of the wine casks in the cellar and needed her assistance so we could speak, however knowing the dwarf he may well have gotten his head stuck in  _ some _ alcohol container or other and she is the only one who is still willing to pull it out, in which case she will perhaps not be so cross with me.”

Avalonne shook her head. “No, that’s not… it’s fine. This isn’t…” She sighed, “I’m not  _ me _ right now.” She wrapped the too-blue arms she didn’t recognize around the frame that was too frail to be hers.

“Allow me to assure you,  _ rosa bianca _ , that if you wish it, I am more than willing to lend my assistance in rectifying that grave injustice.”

She turned to face him and smiled as she nodded. Zevran coaxed her hands away from herself and together they pulled off the tattered rags that were once her wedding dress. She shed a few tears for it when she saw it lying ruined on the floor, but stopped to let him help her into the tub.

Avalonne made sure not to look at the strange body she was in as Zevran washed the months of accumulated grime off her. Once he finished lacing up the bodice on the dress that had been left for her the only thing about herself that wasn’t immediately familiar was the hair that had grown well past her shoulders. She wasn’t sure what she thought about it so had decided to just tie it back for the time being.

“So, tell me,  _ rosa bianca _ : Are you feeling a bit more yourself now?”

She nodded as she wiped some errant tears away. She leaned towards him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He stiffened for the barest instant before he relaxed and used one arm to enfold her about the waist and his other hand to tenderly caress her hair. “Of course. I am ever at your command,  _ cara _ Avalonne."

  
  
  
  



End file.
